Fifty one ways to ask out a Doctor
by j-s-j-e
Summary: Someone has caught the eye of one General O'niell… Now only if he could find a way to ask her out…
1. Attempt 1

Title: One hundred and one ways to ask out a Doctor.

Chapter 1 : Attempt one.

Author: j-s-j-e.

Pairing: I'm pretty sure you can guess who…

Summary: Someone has caught the eye of one General O'niell… Now only if he could find a way to ask her out…

"Not another one!". General Jack o'niell peered down at the name on the list before him. -Dr. Sam Carter.

You know what? Being the new boss of a top secret facility sure does have its draw backs. I mean sure, it sounds cool, but when you can't tell everybody you meet, it sort of loses it magic. One other, highly unfavourable attribute, is the having to go around and meet EVERY SINGLE person on base. Apparently, to know everyone under your command is the sign of a competent leader, or that's at least what the last General in command had alleged, and so, before his passing on of authority he had arranged a timetable for an individual meet with ALL staff in the facility. Yay for me…

This, at first I did not mind, too much... The Air Force officers were a familiar breed; hockey and curling were topics that frequently came up in conversation, thereby making it less of a chore. Tech officers' meets were quick; they didn't really talk much, due to their ability to pretty much just repeat one sentence over and over again:

"Chevron one… encoded".

Kitchen staff were the favourite of the bunch, now racing into the commissary on Thursdays was no longer necessary, due to their promise to always save a piece of pumpkin pie for their favourite general. And the resident "aliens" of the mountain, obviously coming from other planets, offered an array of entertainment, from silently stoic, to outlandishly flirtatious.

But there was one group, one group that turned a simple meet and greet task into pure, unrestrained, torture… The scientists. They enclosed this mountain facility, crowding every corridor, every room and every lab with the strong smell of black coffee and the sound of endless unrecognisable techno-babble, the kind that lulled him into a deep mental unconsciousness every time the sound reached his ears.

Today's timetable revealed that he was due to pay a visit to a Dr. Sam Carter. Due to it being confined in such a small environment the mountain was always a buzz with gossipy chatter and one Dr. Sam Carter seemed to be at the centre of a lot of the hum between the scientists. This Dr. Carter sounded like some sor t of a genius prodigy and despite having only been here for a few months, was already the go-to person for pretty much all scientific research. So in Jacks opinion this guy just sounded like one, giant... nerd.

Great. Just what he was looking forward to. A morning of migraine inducing talk of feedback loops, power fluctuations and magnets. And of all days! It had to be on Pumpkin pie Thursday. Jack sighed, as he shuffled out of his office and into the elevator, making his way to the Dr.'s lab, where he would obviously be. Jack would bet anybody 100 bucks that, that was where he would be found. Those scientists... Boring, but easy to find. Jack walked right up to the door marked -Dr. Carter-, paused, breathed deep and was ready to take the throbbing pain he was sure to appear just at his temples in a few moments. Here we go...

"Dr. can we make this quick, I've got a pumpkin pie waiting for me in the commissary and…",

Jack paused at the face of the doctor in question. Instead of seeing a short, bald, stumpy man with glasses, a bow tie and no life, his gaze fell upon that of an absolutely gorgeous blonde, about 5'9', short hair, great legs and a pair of electric blue eyes that he could get lost in forever! Suddenly, meet and greet wasn't looking so bad. Jack made a mental note to personally thank General Hammond, the previous General, for this inspired idea.

"Sure, we can keep it quick. I'm sure you already know what my name is and i'm sure you don't want to be bored out of your mind by my research...", _she's even smarter than what everyone else thought... _

"No! not at all! I would absolutely be thrilled to hear about (jack peered around the room for anything to help him out... on her lab bench was a large rectangluar boxed machine with some sort of carvings all over it's surface) your giant, metal, box, machine" jack ended, smiling and clasping his hands together, proud of his effort to get to spend more time talking to her.

The Doctor smiled, wholly aware of Jacks's feebel attempt, and began to speak about the device, she stated came from PX3-476. Although, Jack was sure whatever the Dr. was saying, despite the fact a lot of the words coming out of her mouth needed a dictionary to be understood, was important, all the brain was registering was;

"Ask her out! Ask her out! ASK HER OUT!"

Yeah! Why shouldn't I! I'm a man, she's a woman, (how cliché, i hate cliche's!). If it doesn't work, it doesn't work! I mean it's not as if we've been working together for 9 years, trying to deny our secret love for each other, while all the time saving the world and each other's asses more times than you can say pumpkin pie… (hmm… back on the pumpkin pie… I really need to get to that commissary…). In the back of Jacks mind he had registered that the Doctors sweet voice had ceased and broke out of his mental reverie.

"Hey, Carter. Umm… I can call you Carter right?"

"Well that is my last name, sir".

She cracked a smile. (Oh, God!)

"Well… (jsut do it!) I was wondering if you wanted to go o…"

_Ring Ring... Ring Ring... _Dr. Carter turned to look at her phone and then turned back to Jack and shrugged.

"Sorry. Do u mind if i get this?..." she smiled again. (i'm melting...)

Jack waved it away "Yeah sure yo betcha! you look busy, i'll leave you to it, uh... nice to meet you... good, great work, with the box... yes...". Sam tunred and picked up the phone and again out came the techno-speak.

Damn! Sensing that the opportunity had been lost, jack left the doctor to be, in her lab and walked out hopeful that another opportunity to ask the lovely Dr. Carter out, would arise soon. I mean, how long could it take…

A/N: As I'm hoping you've figured out, this is going to be a continuing WIP (work in progress). I'm going to be posting in each chapter, Jack's continuing attempts to ask Sam out. I just started writing this on my lap-top last night, I was just itching to write, since I hadn't done it in such a LONG time and this was what came out. I'm interested to see what will happen, I have no clue! It really leaves the doors wide open for some crazy stuff to occur! Thanks! And remember, I LOVE reviews!

I will also be taking requests for anything people especially want to take place in a chapter of jacks attempts to ask Sam out. Really! Give me anything! I'll work with it! Hehe : )


	2. Attempt 2

Title: 101 ways to ask out a Doctor.

Chapter: Attempt two.

Author: j-s-j-e.

The first week of 'new General duties' had involved an array of meetings and phone calls and an extremely busy schedule that sadly didn't leave much time for visiting a certain doctor on base. Smiles down hallways and the crossing of paths in briefing rooms were the only glances of the resident genius he could get.

A lot of the time, this busy schedule meant late finishes and staying up until all hours of the night trying to dwindle down the large stacks of paper work that somehow kept making its way to his desk. Tonight was no exception.

As the words on the report began to blur and glancing at the same sentence became a natural way of reading, he knew his body was telling him to take a break. After two knee surgeries and countless others to mend other various injuries that came with confidential jobs of the 'black ops' kind, he had learned to listen to his body.

He placed is pen down on the manila folder he had closed, _why can't they make these things in a colour you actually want to look at?_ and groaned as he stood up from his chair, having been in the same position for a long period of time.

He yawned a little as he stood and rubbed his neck, his bones croaked and his muscles tensed as he slowly began to exit his office. He didn't consciously have a decided destination but his legs seemed to be carrying him towards the commissary, his favourite part of the base, well favourite besides any place where the doctor might be, and when he waltzed into the commissary, which he expected to be deserted at this hour, he was quite happily surprised that his two favourite places had collided.

There sitting at a commissary table with a thick manila folder in front of her and a giant cup of blue jello in one hand and spoon in the other was…

"Hey Carter!" He exclaimed happily, maybe a little too happily because she had obviously been concentrating way too heavily on whatever was in that folder, hadn't noticed his entrance and at his greeting jumped a foot in the air from her chair and in the process ended up flinging the large chunk of jello sitting on her spoon into the unexpected target of the Jack's face.

At the offending squelch noise that the jello made as it came into contact, the two people in the room paused. Carter covered her shocked face with her hand, while Jack stayed completely still as the blue substance rolled down his handsome face and onto his uniform. The two looked directly at each other and stared and as if on cue, broke into huge identical bouts of laughter.

Jack doubled over with laughter grabbing his stomach as Sam held onto the chair for support as tears of laughter ran down her face. After what seemed like hours the laughter died down and Sam, realising the true enormity of the situation, rushed forward with a napkin and began gently wiping the blue jello off his face.

Although enjoying the feel of her soft touch Jack gently cleared his throat and took the napkin from her hand lightly "I can clean myself up, it was my fault for scaring you in the first place", he smiled warmly.

Sam realised what she was doing might be a little awkward and with a small blush handed the napkin over, while rambling off apologies and comments about dry cleaning but Jack hardly took notice of her words as he was distracted by her proximity. She hadn't backed away from where she had rushed up to wipe his face clean and was currently quite close to his body. As she spoke Jack noticed the blush on her cheeks brighten which made her look more beautiful than ever.

_Jack this is your moment! Ask her! Ask her!_

His brain yelled at him to seize the moment and ask the beautiful doctor out on a date. He had been concentrating so hard on his thoughts he had been silent for sometime, a serene smile on his face the only indication of what was going on in his head.

Sam noticed this and stoped her apologies and gave him a questioning look. Jack couldn't contain his thoughts any longer and as his mouth opened to speak the words…

"Carter, would you be interested in going ou…"

CRASH!

Both of them turned around suddenly, reacting to the sound of a tray of cutlery making contact with concrete. They were so wrapped up in the jello moment they were having that they hadn't realised someone else was in the commissary with them. An airman was setting up the cutlery tray when he had clumsily dropped it, causing the two to jump apart.

Saluting to the General and nodding to Carter the airman exclaimed, "General, Doctor, Good Morning! I'm sorry about the noise, the tray slipped…".

Jack waved it off with his hand, telling the airman not to worry but as he looked back to Sam she had, at the airman's words, rushed to look at her watch. She hadn't realised what time it was and sighed as she realised she had pulled another all nighter. She glanced back up at Jack who was looking at her, willing for the jello moment to come back.

"Sorry General, but I hadn't realised what the time was. I've got to head home and get some rest before I head back in…".

She smiled and with her hand, carefully wiped some stray bits of blue jello off his cheek. He smiled at this, wanting more than anything to keep her hand there.

"Well goodnight sir, and ah next time warn me a little better of you presence?" She laughed and added "sir" as the airman was still in the room with them. Jack laughed and nodded that he understood and watched as she picked up her folder and walked out of the commissary. As soon as she had left Jack sighed frustratingly. The airman in the room had noticed this and been privy to their goodbyes and asked tentatively "Sir, did I interrupt something?..."

Jack paused for a second to gather himself and turned to the airman and with a glint in his eye pointed at him determinately and stated "There's always round three!" and with that turned on his heels and marched out of the commissary.

The airman not understanding a word of what the General had said to him smiled to himself. This General was a good man and leader, whatever he wanted he would be able to get in a second.

How wrong he was...

A/N: WASSSSSSUUUPPPPPP *cue picture of my face doing the wasssssuupppp thing* haha :D So yeah… PhD is killing me and therefore severely cutting down my time to write! Oh NO! But seriously the little time I do get to write is like a beautiful calming de-stressor and although my experiments don't always g to plan (science is SO unpredictable) I have control of my stories and how the characters will play out! Plus I LOVE hearing feedback from you guys and I hope you enjoy every chapter like I do…

p.s. I am cracking onto the other stories half way through chapter of Our Baby Girl (gonna be a long one) and Saving my Son should come out soon as that isn't as complicated as Our Baby Girl yet! :P


	3. Attempt 3

Title: 51 ways to ask out a Doctor.

Chapter: Attempt 3.

Author: j-s-j-e

Disclaimer: i own nothing otherwise there would already have been a Stargate revival... : )

* * *

General Jack O'Neill didn't mind briefings so much. They were a hell of a lot better than paperwork and hearing about the SG teams' travels always piqued up memories of his time through the gate.

Commanding various teams, rescuing civilisations from extinction, collecting advanced technology and kicking evil alien butt… _sigh_… _good times_… but todays briefing with SG1 was particularly pleasing due to a certain doctor sitting directly in his line of sight, across the briefing room table.

Although he had only been commander of this base for a short time, Jack had become close with the programs flagship team. Consisting of a Colonel Cam Mitchell (reminding him somewhat of himself), Dr. Daniel Jackson (big linguistics nerd), Teal'c (the muscle) and Vala (flirtatious but resourceful).

They were the go to team for many of the bases sensitive missions and along with them came his current favourite person on base, Dr. Carter.

Although she had initially been confined to her lab she had shown promise in a few tough spots off world and with permission, was granted off world training and tacked onto SG1 on a semi-permanent basis.

They were glad to have her, her finesse under pressure and her broad range of scientific knowledge already having saved their asses on more than one occasion.

Jack half listened as Dr. Jackson rattled on about a tablet that could hold the meaning of the existence of life as we know it or it could be a recipe for pancake stacks for all he knew… He was finding the translation quite difficult.

Jack was busy not so subtly staring at the more appealing of the two doctors., finding it disarming how, despite everyone else in the briefing's glazed looks, her electric blue eyes kindly looked on as Dr. Jackson talked rapidly and animatedly with his hands.

Jack figured she, more than anyone, understood the raging passion he had for his form of science, similar to her own, even if in a different field.

_Another reason to add to the list of why you should have already asked her out Jack! She's adoringly kind to those around her..._

At that his brain made a snap decision and he grabbed a fresh sheet of scrap paper, as the previous one had doodles all over it.

He scribbled some words in neat handwriting, slipping it into one of the mission folders he was to hand out.

_Jell-o in my office? 7pm? J._

Subtle but clear he thought.

He looked up quickly then, ready to resume his glazed staring of the woman in front of him, when with a small jolt he realised she was already looking directly at him.

The doctor gave him a small smile looking at her watch, politely indicating that he should probably put a halt on the briefing. It was already going over time and she probably needed to get back to her lab.

Jack cleared his throat loudly, causing Dr. Jackson to pause his bouncing speech.

"Umm… that all sounds… fascinating Daniel. I can't wait to read all about it in your report...", hesitation evident in his voice.

Daniel gave a slightly frustrated sigh realising his ramblings hadn't been acknowledged by his audience.

Mitchell looked relieved, Teal'c stoic, Vala practically asleep and Sam smiled to herself at the General's obvious sarcastic tone.

Everyone began to collect their things and that's when the General's genius plan, _I should've thought to do this long ago! _sprang into action.

He began handing out the mission folders for their next assignment, sliding most of them along the briefing room table to their target but purposefully handing the one with the hand written note to Dr. Carter.

She graciously accepting it with a smile, not realising what it held inside.

Jack left promptly, a phone call beckoning him to his office, inwardly impressed at his little stroke of genius, hoping she would be impressed at his inventiveness.

Little did he know the second he left that not all would be going according to plan.

Dr. Jackson in his rush to get back to his office to continue his translations squarely walked into Dr, Carter, papers and folders flying in all directions.

He apologised profusely to her, pushing his glasses back up his nose as he picked up his notebook and what he _thought_ was his mission file…

**6:59pm**

General O'Neill was like a kid on a sugar high. He couldn't sit still.

He had visited the commissary straight after he had finished his phone call, informing the staff without giving away any information, that he would need their two best servings of jello-0, one blue, one red at around ten to seven.

They had complied with his request and sitting on his desk on top of files he should have been reading were the cups of dessert that had been the source of a lovely moment between them earlier in the week.

He knew she was the type to always be somewhere on time and his stomach did a flip right on 7pm when there was a knock on his door.

He forced a casual 'enter' despite being over-run with excitement that a sort of date was finally going to happen.

His brain smugly thought _third time lucky_ as the door swung open and promptly shut, what the General saw next left him completely dumb-founded.

There standing in front of his desk, looking down at the jell-o on the table was a slightly confused looking Dr. Daniel Jackson.

All the General could do was point at the doctor, jaw slack and mouth open "What… are you doing… here?".

Daniel shoved his hand in his pocket and held up the note he had obviously found in his mission file placing it on the General's desk.

"Jack, quite frankly, I'm surprised you're so interested in the tablet! You wanted another meeting about it right? The note was a little weird but you've always been pretty unconventional and I know you like Jell-o. The meeting today went over time and casual meeting's like this are a great idea!" the doctor exclaimed excitedly.

At that he grabbed the red cup of jell-o, _hey that one was mine!_, and began resuming his earlier ramblings about the tablet.

Jack remained standing for a short while. Still in complete and utter shock.

Slowly he lowered himself into his chair robotically resigning himself to the fact that he now had to sit here and listen to the Doctor talk yet again.

This was his cover story. He had to stick to it.

He had the next day found out inadvertently from Teal'c what had gone wrong; when in passing he had mentioned the Doctors' run in after the briefing.

Unfortunately for him, the damage had been done and the scientific staff of the SGC were all looking forward to their one on one casual sessions with the new General, who they assumed seemed to be keen to hear more about their work, outside of briefings.

The one good thing that came out of it occurred when he was walking down a corridor two days after the incident.

The intended owner of the note had come out of a side door unexpectedly and he stopped abruptly in his tracks to say hello.

She looked as if she was in a rush, so he didn't want to keep her but she hugged her folders close looking indecisive about something and looked as is she was going to go on by without a word when she came to a decision and stopped.

"I think it's great that you're taking time out of your busy schedule to meet up with staff. It's the sign of a great leader." She smiled.

And with that she continued walking on.

He grinned stupidly at her comment, only then registering that that would have been a perfect moment to ask her out.

Slapping his hand to his forehead he let out an audible "doh!" and frustratingly continued onto his destination.

At least round three wasn't a complete bust, he thought as he walked. Although, he wouldn't be having jell-o again for a long while…

* * *

A/N: Shock horror! I KNOW you NEVER thought i would be back did you! Neither did i to tell you the truth... Getting harder and harder to write. But i love it so MUCH, just life is so hectic it's insane. Hope it's ok and i hope all of you are ok too! : ) I've missed this. If someone wants to use this as the basis for some slash fiction. Go ahead. The ending could have been very different if you know what i mean... *wink wink* I couldn't do it. haha :D


End file.
